


Don't Cry

by TheLittlestGiftGiver (Superellysan)



Series: Prompt Drabble Collection [4]
Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Espionage, Gen, Torture, Zero makes things really complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 18:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14754060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superellysan/pseuds/TheLittlestGiftGiver
Summary: The plan was simple: get into the maverick hive, learn where others were located, and get out unnoticed. He'd been in disguise among the thousands of mavericks for weeks, but now there was a snag: his best friend just got captured. And that made things.... interesting.Interesting, and a hell of a lot more complicated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hedgiechama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedgiechama/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Don't cry", X and Zero  
> This one is easily my longest or the prompt drabbles so far (Thus the two chapters), and the one that I'm honestly the most proud of. So without further ado...  
> Enjoy~

The plan was simple. The execution was complex but the plan? Simple.

X would go into the only maverick hive HQ knew about in disguise, dragging behind him a convincing body replica of himself dead. Give it to them, show off his skill, and gain their trust. Learn where the other hives are, get out, and report it all to HQ when he got back. The mission was a secret to all but X and Signas, and was slated to last 3 months.

The disguise was flawless, the entry went off without a hitch, and three weeks had already passed. The mavericks had immediately jumped at the chance to flaunt the fake X corpse off to the world, but they’d already guessed that that would happen. The momentary shock of a dead hero was worth potentially wiping out every organized maverick group and hive in the world.

But now, he hit a snag. A bloodthirsty snag that had cut down about a quarter of the mavericks living there before he was neutralized and dragged, kicking and screaming, to the closest thing the place had to a holding cell.

X hadn’t been there for the neutralizing part, but he had walked back in right as his red friend, weighed down in restraints and carried by five different mavericks, disappeared around a doorway screaming bloody murder and revenge.

“Hey Druid, you missed it!” yelled one of his maverick ‘mates’ as he sauntered into the room. “That Legendary Zero dude came crashing in here looking for you. Guess you’re popular now, huh?”  
X stumbled slightly as the mav roughly shoved his elbow, dread already sinking into the pit of his stomach.  
“It was rough taking him down, let me tell you, but now we got X’s corpse _and_ an S-rank hostage. Haha!”

As more mavericks flooded into the room to congratulate each other, X slipped away, his mind preoccupied with thoughts of how to salvage this mess.

Oh, how to salvage this mess?


	2. Chapter 2

A week passed before he was able to sneak down to where Zero was located.

He had to choke down a cry of dismay when he saw his friend kneeling on the ground, his body on the worse side of mangled and completely bolted down with chains. His arms were locked behind him with servo-cuffs, his helmet was nowhere to be seen, and blood was dripping down his cheeks from a gash in his skull, splattering into the pool that had already accumulated around his knees.

“What do you want?”

It startled X how cracked and grainy Zero’s voice sounded, and he was glad for the facial plate on his disguise because he knew he wouldn’t have been able to pull a convincing poker face when Zero lifted his head, revealing all the tears in his synthskin and the pocks in his throat.

For a split second his friend’s eyes were dark and clouded, until they brightened first in recognition, then in unbridled wrath. “You’re…”

“The one that killed your friend,” X supplied, his voice coming through altered and flat. “Yes.”

Zero lurched forward in rage, before suddenly screaming as the chains holding him down turned a bright red, arcs of electricity flying from them and pushing them onward to a blinding white. It took all X had not to immediately rush over and destroy whatever fuse box the mavericks had rigged up to his friend’s restraints. Instead, he held his ground, watching as his friend struggled and screamed in agony, his only solace being that he knew it wasn’t enough to kill him.

Most of the screams were incoherent ones of pain, but a few were very coherent screams of rage, most of which involved X’s ‘death’ and revenge.

It felt like hours passed before Zero was too exhausted to keep going, slumping forward and heaving in air as the electricity cut off and the chains started to cool down.

X stood away from him, keeping up the act of the impassive maverick. “Are you done?”

“Damn….. you….” Zero hissed out between gulps of air. He now boasted deep and charred marks across his body, with some that dug so deep into his chest, shoulders, and legs, that the melted mechanics and servos inside peeked through.

X’s heart broke to see his friend in such a pitiful state and shivering in pain, but the mission had to come first. It was too important, too big and carried too much weight to be abandoned for one person. Even if that one person was his best friend.

But also, being his best friend, X knew that Zero was a terrible actor. He couldn’t tell him who he was and trust him to act along, not without potentially sabotaging the entire mission.

“You must have really cared for him, huh?” X monotoned, walking around Zero as if he was looking disdainfully down at him, checking the mavericks’ restraint set-up as he went for any weak points. “I mean, you were stupid enough to try and take on this place _alone_ just to get to me, so I’d assume you cared.”

Zero’s shivers turned to full on shakes as he weakly tugged against the chains again. His only reward was a nasty electric shock, and X could almost hear the effort it took his friend not to cry out, as well as saw the rigged fuse box in action. Already his mind was working up a plan to weaken it. Sabotaging it altogether would only result in it getting replaced, and would only serve to make the mavericks suspicious, so that was unfortunately out of the question.

“Hmph. How pathetic. The great S-rank Zero, taken down by a bunch of lowlife mavericks in his rage.”

Zero squirmed, casting his eyes towards the ground. On further inspection, the chain restraints seemed to go through the floor itself in some places, which made things a bit more difficult. The servo-cuffs, however, looked to be old and partially rusted, which could mean that it was structurally unsound.

X drew up to Zero’s back to check the servo-cuffs. The blond trembled and occasionally jerked against his chains, causing more sparks to fly off him. A few of the sparks hit X as he was examining the cuffs, and X grabbed him by the shoulders, holding him still for a few seconds as he finally caught sight of a crack in the cuffs he could use.

“Though I guess that’s better than your friend biting it to one maverick,” X absentmindedly said, trying to formulate a way to aggravate the crack he’d found.

X yelped in surprise as Zero suddenly threw his head back, knocking it rather sharply against X’s face. It didn’t hurt much, but it was enough to startle him. Not worth the price of the electric shock Zero received for trying it, though.

X gave the most convincing condescending laugh he could muster, walking back around so that he faced Zero head on. His eyes roamed over his friend’s body, finalizing the planned sabotage he had in mind that would allow Zero the chance to escape. “Heh. Struggling pathetically; both you and him have that in common, huh?”

His friend’s eyes were glued to the floor, his hair falling forward and concealing his face from X’s sight. His shoulders were shaking, not strongly enough to set off the fuse box again, but enough to be noticeable. His breathing was ragged and coarse, catching every so often in his throat.

“It was stupid to come here, Zero,” X continued, leaning in closely to examine his wounds. “Killing me won’t bring him back. Death doesn’t work that way.”

Zero’s legs, though charred and scoured, weren’t damaged enough to seriously hamper his ability to run as far as X could tell, so he went to his chest. “Or maybe you don’t care? Just wanted revenge, no matter the price. Wanted me to send you on your way, even. Have some closure, see what it was that did your friend in.”

He laughed to add effect, content that his friend’s arms weren’t too badly damaged and that no wound on his chest dug deep enough to give core access, though it was close. The strike that had shattered the green orb on the left side of his chest was just short of deep enough, but there was nothing X could do about it, so he’d just have to hope no one landed a hit there. “Of course, I could just _tell_ you how I killed the famous Megaman X.”

He placed a hand to Zero’s chin, tilting his head up and checking his neck wounds, none of which were very deep, thank god. “About how he fought viciously, and how much he screamed when I-”

Something warm hit his hand, and X was snapped from his act as he watched tiny rivulets of water run down his fingers and drip listlessly off. He looked up.

Zero was crying, his face scrunched up in sorrow and anguish and disgust at himself for showing such weakness and it crushed X’s soul to know that he was the reason why. That he couldn’t console him, not now. Not yet. Not for a long time.

“Don’t cry,” was all he could manage, mumbled in monotone disdain.

Zero glared at him, a sight so full of hatred and grief, before roughly yanking his chin out of X’s grip, biting down his cry at the ensuing electrical shock the motion brought.

X bit his lip to hold back the oncoming pressure in the back of his eyes, thinking through his next words carefully. He needed Zero to leave, not to escape and come for him again but to leave and not come back.

“It really was stupid of you to come here, Zero,” he experimentally began, leaning down to stare his friend in the face. Zero refused to look, though, his face turned away and half buried in his shoulder. “What were you hoping to accomplish? Because it seems lucky to me that you were only captured and not killed on the spot.”

His friend didn’t respond.

“Did you really think it’d be that easy to waltz in here and kill me? There are thousands of mavericks living here, and S-rank or not you’re still just one person.”

X could almost feel the tension radiating off his friend’s body as he talked, the fighting instinct that he knew his friend to have coiling so tightly in within his gut that it probably hurt. He was trembling in his rage, every fiber of his being ready to rip ‘Druid’ apart.

“Do you think he would have wanted this?”

He saw Zero freeze up with that one simple question, and pushed further.

“Do you think he’d have wanted you to throw your life away, just to take revenge on his killer? Do think he’d be _happy_ to see you now, squirming and trembling like a pitiful worm in the bowels of a maverick hive?”

Silence.

X grabbed Zero by his hair, a tinge of his own desperation bleeding into his act as he forced his friend to look at him.

“ _Would he?_ ”

Zero glared into the eyes of his disguise, his teeth bared. The tears streaming down his face had mingled with the blood still dripping from his hair, smearing it and leaving small trails of clear through the crimson.

X let go. He didn’t even have to pretend when he hissed, “You’re pathetic, Zero.”

He turned away from him and headed towards the stairwell, not once looking back as he forced himself to say, “I’ll enjoy seeing you thoroughly broken.”

His foot was on the stairwell, the tears finally breaking through his defenses, when his friend broke his silence.

“I’ll kill you,” Zero gasped behind him. “I swear, I’ll…..”

X feigned a sigh, and quickly shot back, “I doubt it,”, before walking up the stairs. The moment he was certain Zero couldn’t see him, he began dashing, hoping to get to his room before anyone saw the water leaking from his faceplate.

Two weeks and a few visits later, Zero escaped, and X was relieved to discover that he had fled back to HQ. He only hoped he stayed there.

As for his disguise, his encounters with Zero had only strengthened it and the mavericks’ trust in him, so that when he finally returned he’d be carrying with him intel on about 10 maverick hideouts and hives, as it currently stood. He hoped to have more soon.

His biggest concern now was whether or not Signas had let Zero in on the secret when he had returned, thought knowing Signas that was probably not the case. He’d already dreaded everyone’s reactions when he did finally return, and now he dreaded having to face Zero and explain everything worst of all.

That was _not_ going to be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is easily one of my favorites out of the ones I completed last night, so I'm glad I didn't go the easy route of Zero's X1 death or something :9
> 
> Thank you to ReploidHugger for the request, and I really hope y'all enjoyed reading it!  
> Leave a kudos and a comment, if ya like. I see, read, and appreciate all of them♡♡♡  
> Have a wonderful day, and until next time! （＾ヮ＾)/


End file.
